Turner Infosession

On November 19th, SWE hosted an inforsession with Turner. Melissa Yee, a UCLA alum, Vince Quinones and Brent Nikolin gave a brief presentation on projects that Turner has recently been involved in, including many schools, sports coliseums, and some of the tallest buildings in the world. After they each shared from their personal work experience with the company which involved all difference perspectives from a newly graduated collegiate entering into the working world to a senior vice-president who has been with the company for over two decades. For the large turnout of students that attended, they received great advice about how to approach company representatives at career fairs and what interviewers are looking for. As an added bonus, Turner had a surprise raffle at the end to introduce their new bio friendly, bamboo USB flash drives! To learn more about the company, check out the posted meeting minutes from the night.

Renee Lau
Secretary

Put Your Skills to the Test: Gingerbread House-Making

This year's gingerbread social was very successful with over 30 old and new members attending. The event took place November 17, 2009 during week 8, which gave those who attended the social a relaxing break from studying for midterms. While competing to see who could make the sturdiest, prettiest, or largest gingerbread house, attendees appeased their sweet tooth and indulged in the pounds of candy that used to decorate the houses. There was a good mix of upper classmen and lower classmen, which was another plus because the upper classmen were able to give the lower classmen advice in what classes to take next quarter. We were also able to recruit some new members into SWE, which was a goal of ours in hosting this event. Overall, the gingerbread social seemed to uplift people's spirits from a gloomy and stressful week of midterms and provided a central location where everyone could enjoy each other's company.

Debbie Duan
Social Chair

Wow! That’s Engineering!

On November 7, 2009 SWE-UCLA and SWE-LA chapters hosted one of the SWE's signature three "Wow! That's Engineering!" events in the country. Thanks to joined forces of SWE-LA professionals and SWE collegiate members from UCLA, Cal Poly Pomona, and CSULA, over 130 young girls, ages 12-14, and 40 adults were introduced to the exciting world of engineering. Wow! That's Engineering! was a half day event, during which attendees were able to participate in some exciting hands-on activities, like building an electric circuit, plane, or solar panel car, which allowed them not only to practice their creativity, but also explore what it truly means to be an engineer. Parents and educators who participated in the adult program during our event, had a chance to satisfy their curiosity by having their various questions answered by engineering students and professionals as part of an informational panel. The event was concluded with the keynote address by Robert Silverstein, a professor of introductory engineering classes at UCLA. All the participants left the event with new knowledge about engineering, new skills, and a goodie bag filled with gifts and materials encouraging them to continue exploring the vast field of engineering.

Aleksandra Mstowska
Outreach Director

Engineering Awards Dinner

The Annual UCLA Engineering Awards Dinner was held this year on Friday, November 6th. This event takes place every year in the beautiful Beverely Wilshire hotel. Due to our reputation as a very professional student group, SWE is the only engineering student organization that is asked to help out at the event every year. It is a most prestigious gala with tickets at $300 a person, so it is a great honor for SWE to always be involved.

Volunteers arrive early to help greet attendees and register people. Everyone is dressed in fine cocktail attire while volunteers are required to wear conservative yet dressy clothing. As volunteers, we were also invited to stay for dinner after our pre-event duties were fulfilled. There were many professors and alumni, as well as company representatives and UCLA sponsers. Before the event officially began, people socialized at the open bar and were served hors d'oeuvres such as bite-sized spring rolls and steak pasteries.

Finally, the five-course dinner started at 7pm. On the menu was a pear and walnut salad, creamy mushroom soup, a fish fillet and steak entree, as well as coffee and a rich chocolate dessert. After dinner, awards were presented and there were a variety of speakers including Engineering Dean, Vijay Dhir, and UCLA Chancellor, Gene Block. Also, a special guest was NASA Astronaut, Megan McArthur, a UCLA alumnus from the class of 1993.

The evening finally wound down at around 10pm, and everyone headed home after a long night.

Jackie Koo

Historian

Schlumberger Resume and Interview Workshop

On November 5, 2009, SWE-UCLA hosted a Schlumberger infosession. The star of the night was Angela Morris, who has been with Schlumberger for 6 years. Angela briefly went over the company history, services, and people. She also showed a video where the audience got to see a little bit of Schlumberger's operations. Afterwards, Angela went into resume and interview tips. There were several tips that would hopefully help out the underclassmen in the audience. Things like how to approach recruiters at career fairs, what to say and what not to say are all important because that's the recruiter's first impression of you. As for the resume portion, I learned that it is important to put specific details into the work experience section instead of just listing the job. Some of the information might seem obvious, but there are things that people just don't think about, and that's what made this infosession so useful.

Andy Kung
Mentorship Chair

Edwards Lifesciences Infosession

On October 22nd , SWE-UCLA hosted an infosession for Edwards Lifesciences with Tara Horvath, Senior Engineer, and Scott Steinberg, TDP Engineer , representing the company. They prepared an interesting presentation explaining the goals of their company, its products, and the various opportunities it offers to its current and prospective employees (including college students). The large group of students who attended the event had a chance to view computer simulated videos of Edwards Lifesciences products, including their transcatheter heart valve technology and videos with reviews from their satisfied customers. After the presentation, students were able to ask the representatives numerous questions while all the guests enjoyed Enzo's Pizza. If you missed this great opportunity but would still like to learn more about Edwards Lifesciences, please contact SWE-UCLA.

Aleksandra Mstowska
Outreach Director

SWE 2009 Annual Conference

Welcome to Long Beach, California, the host of this year's SWE Annual Conference! This huge event took place from Monday, October 12th to Saturday, October 17th. With thousands of attendees from across the United States and some even from overseas, the SWE Annual Conference has one of the most impressive congregations of women engineers.

The members of SWE-UCLA arrived for the Conference on Thursday, October 15th, in time for some of the more exciting and relevant activities of the whole convention. Friday started off with a massive career fair constituting over 200 companies, all with many eager representatives to match the eager engineers searching for jobs. Companies in attendance included: Boeing, CIA, Chevron, Dell, NASA, John Deere, Genentech, Ford, Facebook, U.S. Airforce, and Turner Construction. This job fair provided a great chance for students to get their resumes out to companies and even land interviews on-site! This was also one of the best opportunities for our Evening with Industry External Co-Chair, Linda Wong, to recruit company attendees for EWI 2010.

The next day, Saturday, was filled with infosessions and workshops. There were various topics from professional development and SWE leadership to outreach and innovation in technology and business. In the afternoon, there was a break for the student collegiate luncheon which was sponsored by Northrop Grumman. It was a three-course sit-down lunch, and attendees were randomly seated in order to encourage networking with students from other collegiate sections. Northrop Grumman also had a panel that consisted of three past SWE National Presidents: F. Suzanne Jenniches, Alma U. Martinez Fallon, and Michelle Tortolani. In addition, the current SWE National President, Nora Lin, gave an opening speech. After lunch, a few SWE-UCLA attendees stayed for more infosessions and workshops while the rest headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest.

Saturday night's big event, Celebrate SWE!, was the most anticipated part of the Conference. Celebrate SWE! is a three-course banquet for all the SWE sections to gather with their SWE Regions to show spirit and support for their fellow engineers. SWE-UCLA is proudly part of Region B, the Sonora Region, which includes Arizona, New Mexico, Southern California, Southern Nevada, and Utah. The night is meant to honor outstanding individuals as well as exemplary professional and collegiate sections. This year, SWE-UCLA was awarded second place for its 2008-2009 Newsletter and the Silver Award for Outstanding Collegiate Section! Congratulations to Yin Seo for creating the winning Newsletter! SWE-UCLA is very proud of these achievements and hope for more in the future!

Not only were SWE-UCLA members active participants in the aforementioned activities, they were also a big help behind the scenes. Almost 30 members signed up to volunteer at the Conference, performing duties such as monitoring speaker rooms or collecting tickets for luncheons and banquets. Volunteers are important components of such a large event. Without these volunteers, the SWE Annual Conference would not run as smoothly.

Thank you to everyone who attended our SWE 2009 Annual Conference, and hopefully, there will be even more people in attendance next year in Florida!

Jackie Koo

Historian

Accenture Infosession

October 8 marked the date of SWE-UCLA’s first company infosession of the 09-10 school year! We had about 20 students in attendance who were eager to learn about the exciting, yet foreign, world of consulting with Accenture. Four Accenture representatives walked us through their powerpoint presentation, stopping at almost every slide to answer audience questions and share some of their case experiences.

Some of the major points that were covered that night:
Consulting firms leverage their expertise to help companies solve problems and improve performance to raise the company’s value. They do this by promoting “best practices.”

The assets of a consulting firm are its employees: the power is in the people!

Consulting is a good fit for engineers who want:
More than just technical work
Exposure to different companies
See the entire project lifecycle
Working with clients face to face
Team work
Travel and experience different places
Accenture hires from a variety of different majors, from the different engineering disciplines to economics.

For anyone interested in applying for full-time positions with Accenture:
Complete an application on BruinView
Complete an online application at www.careers.accenture.com/jobs.
Search for job number: 00078978

Deadline: Friday, October 23RD, 2009


David Liu
Webmaster

Mentorship Kick Off

SWE's Fall Mentorship Event was held on October 7th in the Boelter Penthouse. At the beginning, it was quite chaotic, but the good thing was that there were tons of people in attendance! Though it was difficult for participants to find their mentors or mentees, eventually, everyone got settled in. At that point, everyone was welcome to dig into the food! There was Thai Fried Rice with beef, Pineapple Chicken Curry, Beef Pad Thai, and Tofu Pad See Ew. Once everyone found their mentor or mentee, the room’s atmosphere became a lot happier. The rest of the dinner was pretty uneventful as people were engaged in conversations with their mentors, mentees, and peers. In the middle of the dinner, SWE counselor, Bill Goodin, made an appearance and introduced himself to the freshman and transfer students. Towards the end of the dinner, our lovely president, Tiffany Tsao, helped raffle off three SWE t-shirts and two SWE mugs to the audience. She then attempted to give a closing speech before she was interrupted by Kanye West! The crowd jeered Kanye, but Tiffany was given an opportunity to finish her speech. Overall, it was quite a successful dinner considering how hectic the evening started out.

I can't wait to see everybody when Winter Mentorship Event rolls around!






Andy Kung
Mentorship Chair

Open House

SWE Open House was a great success! We had our first General SWE Meeting on Thursday, October 1, 2009, and the Engineering Society lounge was packed with over 60 attendees! All of the Executive Board officers introduced themselves to the audience, and Aleksandra Mstowska, our Outreach Director, told everyone about our large outreach program as well as two upcoming events: a bake sale social in which the proceeds go to an orphanage and the "Wow! That's Engineering" Outreach event for 12- to 14-year-old girls, hosted with SWE-LA, other collegiate chapters of SWE, and the UCLA Engineering student group. Linda Wong, the other co-host of this meeting and the current (External) Evening with Industy Co-chair, showed a clip from our mentorship video and gave a very engaging presentation on the top ten reasons to join SWE. Andy Kung, the Mentorship Chair, then talked about the mentorship program in further detail, recuiting mentees as well as mentors. Carolyn Chuang, the Team Tech Director, spoke about the new Team Tech Program at UCLA this year, and Debbie Duan, the Social Chair, advertised for the AIAA joint-BBQ coming up on the weekend and the SWE Annual Gingerbread Social. After the presentation, we had food from Mr. Noodle, while the officers branched out in order to get to know everyone. Thanks to all the officers for making this event a blast!

Tiffany Tsao
President